Discussion: explosion

Sorry.... :( I had that feeling at NAOC on the Friday course with the really thick veg and the pouring rain. Did you end up on the ridge to the north? Coming from the mis-hang location for #3 that would have been super easy to do. Post your track!

Anyway, don't be too hard on yourself. Even elites make big mistakes occasionally.

Meremac's courses always look easy. But it is conducive to parallel errors and it is SO hard to figure what went wrong and where you are.
In terms of total time, there's little consolation, but how was your accuracy and pace on other legs?

i can't find my map at the moment but i ended up in a parallel reentrant to the northwest with a large rock feature.

i attacked 3 perfectly, arriving where it should have been and knowing exactly where i was. then carrie and i worked together and found the mis-hung bag. then i took off in a hurry to make up that lost time and soon found myself in that wrong reentrant with the similar rock feature, except my map was folded so i didn't know it was wrong until i had tried to relocate and got myself even more lost. used a hilltop and then a couple trail junctions to finally figure it out.

track: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/240393403

the rest of the legs were fine since i was mostly hiking them, only running the super easy stuff on road or trail.

It's interesting that Bing shows you to be out of Park boundaries - they are referencing a very old MSP map. The MSP website, SLOC(1996), and Google all agree on the boundaries in this area.

There's sure a lot of pits and rock features in that corner - I've never spent much time there - good excuse for a hike or overnight.

Yes, your mind must have said "Go N Emily", not NE. Even though you correctly diagnosed the mishung bag, it is revealing and depressing that the mind can't just ignore it: break in concentration, irritation, 'must catch up', all play a role.

I had nearly the same experience at 3, only I wasn't confident enough to consider that it was mis-hung. I had a fair share of technical difficulties getting to 4, but I think it had a lot to do with 3 being in the wrong place.

Other than that, and losing my passport, I had a really fun time out there. It was nice running with you and Chuck (for about 30 seconds) while I could keep up :)

MIX MASTER!!! fun seeing you out there too! what's the shoe report??

for the record, i'm not usually that confident about my whereabouts, i was having a "moment of clarity" that was reinforced when carrie arrived at the exact same spot from a different attack point.

Yep, you went straight north from the mis-hang location. The same bearing from the mapped location would have been ok, probably, cuz you'd have missed the N/S part of the ridge. I was worried about going too far north and aimed off for the reentrant to the south of the correct ridge and then contoured NE along the ridge with reentrant on my right.

At least you were able to relocate! That wasn't so easy given how far to the NE you were.

The shoes are pretty much awesome, especially for a $40 pair of "defects." For such a non-aggressive tread pattern, I was really impressed with the traction I was getting out there. Never fell once, and that's a rarity. I'll definitely go back for another pair on payday.

My only saving grace on the way to 4 was that I stumbled across the fence that runs North/slightly NE. After that, I was good to go.